
Book- 









SPEECH 



HON. MARCUS J. PARROTT 



OF KANSAS. 



Delivered in the House of B,epresentatives, April 10, 1860. 

— 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

1860. 



G 3 -) t I 



Speech of Mr. Parrott. 



The House kaving tinder consideration the 
t)ill (H. R. No. 23) for the admission of Kansas 
into the Union- 
Mr. PARROTT said : 

Mr. Speaker : I do not propose, under all 
the circumstances, to inflict on the House an 
elaborate speech in regard to the merely politi- 
cal questions connected with Kansas Territory ; 
but I should do injustice, both to myself and 
to my constituents, if I did not come forward 
and meet the objections brought by the gentle- 
man who has made the minority report. I shall 
do so in a spirit of frankness and candor, sub- 
mitting myself fairly, and cheerfully even, to 
interrogatories from all sides of the House. I 
■will say more : if any reasonable man shall be- 
lieve that I have not fairly met every objection 
that has been made, I will give up this contro- 
versy, go out of the House, and ask my con- 
stituents to send somebody here who does un- 
derstand their case. The cause itself is unan- 
swerable, I shall meet, then, every objection, 
and meet it fairly and squarely. 

When the Lecompton Constitution was ad- 
judged to be a fraud, two years ago, in this 
House, and when, with a singular stultification, 
as it seems to me, men could be found in this 
House ready to pronounce it a fraud, and at 
the same time to tender it to the people of 
Kansas as their organic law 5 when, 1 say, that 
Constitution was stricken down, there sprung 
out of it that mean and false contrivance known 
as the English bill. 

The title of that bill was a false title ; its 
provisions were deceitful and double. It is 
entitled " An act to admit the State of Kansas 
into the Union," when everybody knows that 



it, was intended to keep the State of Kansas 
out of the Union. For, sir, we all know that 
the people of the Territory had rejected the 
Lecompton Constitution. They sent a Dele- 
gate to this House to protest against its ac- 
ceptance, which protest I entered early and 
often during that controversy. It was known 
they had rejected it, when, on a specific issue 
made, they polled a vote of five thousand ma- 
jority against it, in January of 1858 ; and it 
was, moreover, known that that Lecompton 
Constitution, which was pretended to be rati- 
fied in December of 1857, was the culminating 
point of a long series of frauds and aggressions 
on the rights of the people of the Territory. 

Sir, I was amazed, the other day, to hear the 
distinguished member from Alabama, [Mr. 
Curry,] who has a reputation for ingenuous- 
ness, paying posthumous honors to the Le- 
compton Constitution. I ask that gentleman 
to look at the votes polled in certain precincts 
in the December election of 1857, in the pre- 
tended submission of the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion. Let him look at Oxford, and Kickapoo, 
and Delaware Crossing, and compare the vote 
then reported with the returns from those pre- 
cincts at every general election since, up to 
this time, and note the disparity. The muster- 
ed clans and hosts of December, 1857, at Ox- 
ford and Kickapoo, whither have they gone ? 
Ask the political conjurers who summoned 
these mythical myriads to appear upon the 
stage for the accomplishment of sinister de- 



At no election since that pretended affair, 
have all these precincts combined polled more 
than three or four hundred votes ; and yet, sir, 



if you subtract the thousands which were 
polled there in December, 1857, you would 
have the Lecompton Constitution left naked — 
stripped of the factitious vote through which it 
was sought to be juggled off upon\he credulity 
of Congress and the country. 

Sir, 1 do not know that I should myself be 
politically displeased to find that those who 
differ with me honestly and conscientiously, 
regarding the policy of our country in respect 
to slavery, are so far pressed to the wall as to 
stand and plant themselves upon the ground of 
the Lecompton Constitution. It is, sir, a con- 
fession of weakness; and I am not at all ap- 
prehensive that the judgment of history will 
be disturbed or misled in regard to the merits 
of that measure. That judgment has been al- 
ready pronounced in every section of the coun- 
try ; for, has not a distinguished Senator [Mr. 
Hammond] of South Carolina said, in language, 
if not very elegant, at least idiomatic, that it 
ought to have been " kicked out of Congress " 
the moment it was presented there ? 

But, sir, this English bill was a proposition 
odious and offensive to the people of the Terri- 
tory. It was hardly less revolting, I hope, to 
the country at large, on accou»t of its intense 
discrimination against the institutions of the 
free States. It prescribes one rule for the ad- 
mission of a slave State, and"- another, with 
superadded and onerous conditions, for a free 
State. It is thus partial, invidious, and unfair. 
What have the people of Kansas said in reply ? 
In effect, " We desire admission into the Union, 
' but not such admission ; we desire, if we 
' come into the Union, to come with our honor 

* untarnished and unsullied — on an equal foot- 

* ing with the original States — not only as a 
' confederate, but as a coequal in the family of 
' States." 

I shall say nowhere, in the course of my re- 
marks, that the people of Kansas have suc- 
cumbed to the provisions of the English bill. 
I should despise myself and dishonor them if 
I believed they ever had it in contemplation to 
give way to its provisions. Wbat next, sir? 
They have seen fit to form another Constitution, 
and the President of the United States has 
come forward, and, in language nearly identical 
with that of the minority report, addressed to 
the Thirty-fifth Congress, has anticipated the 
formation of the Constitution, and declared it 
to be a revolutionary act. 

Mr. BaRKSDALE. I understood the gen- 
tleman to say just now that the people of Kan- 
sas have not succumbed to the English bill. 

Mr. PARROTT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BARKSDALE. I desire to ask him if 
they did not vote under its provisions? 

Mr. PARROTT. I will answer that they did 
vote, but they were not parties to that law. 
They repudiated its restrictive clause as inop- 
erative, fur reasons which I shall presently 
state. I ask you — I put it to the gentleman 
from Mississippi — whether it could be fairly 



said that, having rejected the Lecompton Con- 
stitution, they were bound by all the provisions 
of that bill? 

Mr. BARKSDALE. Why, sir, I hold that 
they were bound by the provisions of that bill. 
That is the point which I have made. Whether 
they voted or not, it was their duty to do it; 
and 1 hold it was their duty to obey all the 
provisions of that bill. Hence I am opposed 
to the admission of Kansas upon that very 
ground : that she would be admitted in palpa- 
ble violation of the law passed by Congress. 

Mr. PARROTT. I must pass on, Mr. Speak- 
er. The people of Kansas have presented an- 
other Constitution here, and I wish, before I 
advance to the consideration of specific objec- 
tions 

Mr. COX. Before the gentleman leaves that 
point, I beg that he will allow me to ask him 
a question. 

Mr. PARROTT. I yield to the gentleman 
for that purpose. 

Mr. COX. He says that the people of Kan- 
sas never, in any way, recognised that bill of 
the conference committee. Is that his state- 
ment? 

Mr. PARROTT. I said they had never suc- 
cumbed to the reatricfive provisions of that bill. 

Mr. COX. Oh, no ; you did not use the 
words " restrictive provisions." 

Mr. PARROTT. Well, I say that now, and 
I said that before. 

Mr. COX. Well, I ask my friend, in justice 
to the men who voted for that bill, to answer 
this question 

Mr. PARROTT. I do not want to be drawn 
from the line of my argument. 

Mr. COX. Ah, but the gentleman must state 
the truth as it occurred there, and it is this : 
that, in pursuance of the provisions of that bill, 
clearly followed in every particular by the 
commissioners, there was an election in Kan- 
sas ; and by that election, the sense of the 
people was taken, and Lecompton, as the 
chairman of the Committee on Territories said 
this morning, was throttled and killed by it ; 
and it was intended, by many of the men who 
voted for that bill, to give that very opportunity 
to the people to break down that Constitution 
which they spurned. 

Mr. PARROTT. The gentleman is vindica- 
ting his own action, and not asking me a ques- 
tion. I cannot yield for such a purpose. 

Mr. COX. The gentleman knows that Gov- 
ernor Denver himself, by ofGcial proclamation, 
following up the provisions of that conference 
bill, proclaimed the number of votes cast, and 
at the end of his proclamation, in pursuance of 
that very conference bill, declared that the 
Lecompton Constitution was not the choice of 
the people of Kansas. 

Mr. PARROTT. I cannot yield any longer 
to the gentleman. He does not interrogate 
me. 

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Will the gentleman 



from Kansas allow me to answer the gentle- 
man from Ohio ? 

Mr. PARROTT. No ; I must decline to yield 
further. I shall come to that point presently. 

Mr. MONTGOMERY. I will do it in one 
minute. 

Mr. PARROTT. I am coming to that direct- 
ly. I was about to say, when I was interrupt- 
ed, that this case is to be discriminated from 
preceding applications made by this Territory 
for admission into the Union. Kansas has 
once been admitted by the House of Represent 
atives as a State ; upon another occasion, it has 
been admitted by the Senate ; and upon a third 
occasion, when both houses conjoined to invite 
her into the Union, the proposals were declined. 
But, sir, these were contests of factions ; they 
rested upon peculiar and political grounds, and 
not upon arguments of the intrinsic fitness of 
the Territory to become a State, by reason of 
the numbers, the homogenousness, the aggre- 
gate or distributive wealth of its people, or any 
\ argument of economy. It is due to candor that 
thus Such should be stated. 

These preceding applications were urged on 
the ground of political necessity, arising out of 
the confusion and disorder prevalent in the 
Territory. For example : the Topeka Consti- 
tution was passed by those friendly to the es- 
tablishment of free instittttions, because the 
Territorial Government had been wrested from 
the hands of the settlers, and there was no legal 
relief, except in the adoption of that Constitu- 
tion. The Lecompton Constittttion was passed 
for exactly opposite reasons, because the usurp- 
ers and invaders would be driven out of the 
Territory, and all their years of struggle, and 
the unripe fruits of invasion, would be thrown 
away, unless that Constitution could be ratified 
by Congress. But this is a different case; it 
stands upon the intrinsic fitness of the country 
to become a State. The Territorial Legislature 
initiated the measure by passing a law for the 
regulation of the subject. Admonished by the 
haste and imperfection of previous attempts in 
this behalf, they now prepared to move forward 
by slow and- gradual steps, consulting the peo- 
ple at every stage, so that if, at any time, from 
first to last, the popular voice failed to buoy up 
the movement, it must drop and be lost — the 
whole scheme failed. In the first place, the 
specific question was submitted, whether the 
change was desirable ; and it was passed upon 
as a separate and distinct question, unmixed 
with anything else, at an election appointed for 
that purpose only. It occasioned but little sur- 
prise to me that this question failed to elicit a 
vote proportioned to its great importance, and 
a much less universal expression than could be 
desired in a business of this magnitude. 

In the first place, abstract questions of this 
kind rarely engage, ardently and deeply, the 
popular attention ; but in the present case, I 
attribute the light vote chiefly to the fact that 
the public mind, longlcept on a tension strain- 



ing after the public safety, naturally underwent 
a reaction, and inclined to repose when the 
sense of immediate danger no longer threaten- 
ed. The summing up of the vote showed a 
majority of five to one in favor of the State 
movement. In the next place, the Convention 
having been called, came an election for dele- 
gates to represent the people therein. This 
question excited a universal interest and a 
warm contest in every district of the Territory. 
The delegates were chosen; the Convention 
met ; a Constitution was framed. It was sub- 
mitted for ratification some two months after 
its adoption by the Convention and its publica- 
tion and circulation among the people. The 
election was again a special one, for this pur- 
pose, and for this alone. The Constitution was 
ratified by two-thirds of the votes cast ; and I 
think I may reasonably assume, that but for 
false arguments employed to mislead the public 
mind in respect to some material clauses of the 
instrument — particularly the article on suf- 
frage — the vote against it would have been 
wholly insignificant. In point of fact, there- 
fore, the Constitution may be taken as accept- 
able to nearly the entire body of the people of 
the Territory. Nor does this approval stand 
alone. The sober second thought of the people 
is not wanting ; for it was put in issue again in 
the election of a Delegate, among whose prom- 
inent duties would be that which I am now at- 
tempting to perform, to wit: the pressing of the 
Constitution upon Congress ; and in this the 
former emphatic expression was renewed. 
Finally, a third time, this judgment was reaf- 
firmed in electing State officers and a State 
Legislature from the ranks of the party friendly 
to the Constitution. Thus it appears now, be- 
yond doubt or cavil, that the public interest and 
approval, not strong in the first part, rose at 
last to a height of zeal corresponding to the 
magnitude of the movement, and bore up by 
heavy and repeated verdicts, through many 
trials, the friends of a State Government under 
this Constitution. 

This much is clear, and can form no part of 
any controversy arising out of the consideration 
of this subject : that the people of the Territory 
did, deliberately and dispassionately, demand 
a Convention to frame a Constitution and State 
Government; that they constituted a Conven- 
tion of delegates, freely and fairly chosen from 
among themselves, to make such Constitution ; 
and, finally, that they did thrice declare their 
entire and unqualified approval and acceptance 
of the instrument framed and submitted to them 
by the Convention. No part of this ground is 
debatabk. 

The first inquiry which presents itself is, were 
the people in the exercise of a legitimate power 
in doing what they have done ? The practice 
of the Government has not been uniform in re- 
spect to the preliminary steps towards a State 
Government. In some instances, perhaps ia 
most, Congress has authorized the people, by 



6 



what is called an enabling act, to frame a Con- 
stitution preparatory to application for admis- 
sion into the Union ; in other, and not a few 
instances, the people have proceeded on their 
own motion, as in this case. I am not aware 
that their right to do so has ever been seriously 
called in question; at any rate, it is safe to say 
that the exercise of this power by the people 
has never been deprecated or condemned by 
Congress as illegal or revolutionary. 

This right is now put in issue. It is said by 
the President of the United States, and said by 
the distinguished gentleman from Missouri, 
[M.V. Clark;,] whose signature is appended to 
this minority report, that the people of Kansas 
had no right to make a Constitution. Mr. 
Speaker, there are few political heresies known 
to the world that this Administration has not 
fallen into, and one of the worst and most in- 
jurious to our progressive society is the dogma 
in which he announces that one Congress can- 
not repeal a law made by another Congress ; 
that our laws, like those of the Medes and Per- 
sians, are irreversible. I now pass to consider 
whether the people of a Territory can be re; 
stricted of a constitutional privilege, and whether 
this act is such a privilege. 

Mr. CL5.RK, of Missouri. Will the gentle- 
man from Kansas allow me to say 

Mr. PAKROTT. I cannot yield now. lam 
at this moment speaking of the President. I will 
come to you in a moment. [Laughter.] The 
President says, in his message to the Thirty- 
fifth Congress, second session, he does not pre- 
sume the people of Kansas will have the hardi- 
hood to frame another Constitution without the 
consent of Congress. And now, sir, what is 
the application of the people of Kansas upon 
which we are now to act, but an application 
upon their part to Congress to repeal the re- 
strictive clause of the English bill? Is it law- 
less for the people of Kansas to petition Con- 
gress for a redress of their grievances ? That, 
sir, is no new question ; but it presents the 
very point in issue. In the year 1836, in the 
case of Arkansas, this whole question was pre- 
sented, discussed, and decided— that the pre- 
sentation of a Constitution, framed by a Constitu- 
tional Convention, was nothing but an exercise 
of the great constitutional prerogative of the 
people to petition Congress for a redress of their 
grievances. And this is the mode ; this is the 
particular degree of relief for which they have 
prayed. 

Attorney General Butler, speaking of this 
Arkansas case, said, in relation to the right of 
the people of a Territory in this respect : 

" They undoubtedly possess the ordinary priv- 
' ileges and immunities of citizens of the United 
' States. Among these is the right of the peo- 
' pie peaceably to assemble and petition the 
' Government for the redress of grievances. In 
* the exercise of this right, the inhabitants 
< * * * may meet together in primary 
' assemblies or in Convention * * * for 



' the purpose of petitioning Congress to abro- 
' gate the Territorial Government, and to admit 
' them into the Union as an independent State. 
' The particular form which they may give to 
' their petition cannot be material, so long as 
' they confine themselves to the mere right of 
' petitioning, and conduct al? their proceedings 
' in a peaceable manner. If, therefore, they see 
' proper to accompany their petition by a writ- 
' ten Constitution, framed and agreed on by 
' them, * * * I perceive no legal ob- 
' jection to their right to do so." 

So I say now, to the gentleman from Missouri. 
When he assumes that the people of Kansas 
are guilty of lawlessness, because th<^y have 
assembled in Convention, I tell him that his 
English bill is inoperative and void, becauae it 
is in contravention of the right guarantied by 
the Constitution to the people, peaceably to as- 
semble and petition Congress for a redress of 
their grievances. 

But, sir, right here let me observe to that 
gentleman, that there is another point to which , 
I wish to call his attention. He has been very 
free in bringing in a bill of indictment against 
the people whom I represent; and I must be 
allowed to observe, with all due respect to him, 
that it comes with peculiar infelicity from a cit- 
izen of Missouri in his place here to charge the 
people of Kansas with lawlessness and disor- 
der. All now see clearly the true aspect of this 
feature of the case, notwithstanding the most 
industrious efforts have been made to conceal 
it from the public eye. It is now known, as 
well as anything ever can or will be known, 
that it was the repeated raids of ruffians and 
cut-throats of Missouri, with a view to over- 
whelm the infant settlements of the Territory, 
that first set burning in Kansas Territory the 
fire that afterwards spread all over the land, 
and recently broke out with such fatal fierce- 
ness at Harper's Ferry, in Virginia. 

Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. I ask the gentle- 
man to allow me to say that he is in great er- 
ror, both in his remarks and in the spirit ia 
which he delivers them, against the people of 
Missouri. 

Mr. PARROTT. I was not speaking of the 
people of Missouri. 

Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. The gentleman 
was in error, as the history of the times will 
show. 

Mr. PARROTT. The gentleman must not 
take up my time by going into a prolonged dis- 
cussion of that matter ; we can do that, if neces- 
sary, another time. 

Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. I just want to <| 
say that the history of the times will show that I 
it was, if men went into Kansas from Missouri 
for unlawful purposes, they were instigated to 
go there by the persons who were selected and 
sent out by the emigrant aid societies of New 
England. [Laughter on the Republican side.] 

Mr. THAYER. The gentleman from Kan- 
sas yields to me to reply to the remark of the 



gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Clark] in rela- 
tion to the New England Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany. On several occasions I have sought 
the floor, when charges have been made here 
against that company, for the purpose of show- 
ing what it was, and how it acted. I have, in 
one speech made in this hall, defined its opera- 
tions ; I have shown it to be simply a business 
orgamzation, conducted on business principles, 
for the purpose of making investments in the 
Territory of Kansas. They never paid any 
one's expenses to that Territory; they never ex- 
pended one dollar in the purchase of arms for 
any of the people who went to that Territory ; 
they never made any contributions of money in 
the shape of gifts at any time ; they had in 
view simply and always legitimate business pur- 
poses ; and if they failed to conduct their oper- 
ations upon legitimate business principles, they 
were amenable to the courts of justice when- 
ever they violated the rules that govern busi- 
ness corporations ; but that has never been 
charged ; no suit has ever been brought against 
them. 

Mr. REAGAN. Will the gentleman from 
Massachusetts permit me to ask him whether 
the project of this emigrant aid project did 
not originate amongst politicians in Washing- 
ton city, for the accomplishment of political 
purposes ? 

Mr. THAYER. No, sir. On the contrary, 
I originated the plan myself. I framed the 
charter of that Emigrant Aid Company. I 
laid every timber in the plan of its organiza- 
tion, and am alone responsible for it. I was 
a member of the Massachusetts Legislature at 
the time ; and if th'3 Kansas and Nebraska bill 
had not passed, I would have applied the ener- 
gies of the company to some other purpose; but 
that bill having passed, I thought it opened a 
very good field for operation. 

Mr, REAGAN. Will the gentleman allow 
me to propound another question ? 

Mr. PARROTT. I must object to my time 
being consumed by this interlocutory discus- 
sion, 

Mr. REAGAN. I only wished to ask the 
gentleman whether the plan had not previously 
been set on foot here, in Washington, by Sen- 
ators and Representatives iu Congress, to ac- 
complish a political purpose ? 

The SPEAKER pro tempoi-e. The Chair 
must arrest this irregular discussion, unless the 
gentleman from Kansas yields. 

Mr, PARROTT, I cannot yield, unless the 
House will extend my time, 

Mr. THAYER. If the gentleman from Kan- 
sas is willing to give me the opportunity, I 
should be glad to answer the gentleman from 
Texas ; and I ask him to repeat his question. 

Mr. REAGAN. What I asked was, whether 
the movement of which he speaks in Massa- 
chusetts, was not subsequent to the setting on 
foot of a scheme for an emigrant aid society 



in this city, by politicians, for political pur- 
poses, during the winter of 1854. 

Mr. THAYER. On the contrary, that was 
subsequent to the origin of this Emigrant 
Aid Company in Massachusetts. As early as 
February, 1854, the plan of this company wag 
formed and published in Massachusetts. The 
Kansas and Nebraska bill was not passed until 
May, in that year, and some movement was 
made by politicians here in Washington rela- 
tive to some kind of a society to settle Kansas, 
I think in June or July of that year. But this 
Washington scheme never was put in opera- 
tion. If there was anything that took prece- 
dence of this emigrant aid orranization, it was 
the blue lodges of Missouri, [laughter,] which 
were, I believe, formed prior to that time ; and 
which had resolved that the Yankees should 
never go into Kansas, if bayonets and revolvers 
could keep them out. The Emigrant Aid So- 
ciety, however, never sent any men there ex- 
cept peaceable men, who went to Kansas for 
peaceable and friendly purposes. The com- 
pany never so much as inquired what were 
their politics. Among its original corporators 
were Whigs, Democrats, and Free-Soilers. If 
its labors and investments and encouragement 
of emigration have resulted in making Kansas 
a free State, as gentlemen claim, I have only 
to say it was done according to law. 

Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. Will the gentle- 
man permit me to say 

Mr. PARROTT. I cannot yield further. I 
cannot stop now to discuss emigrant aid socie- 
ties or blue lodges. I know all about those 
companies. I received no aid in going to Kan- 
sas myself, and I believe a vast majority ef the 
people who went to Kansas went there without 
the aid of the New England Emigrant Aid So- 
ciety, though the efiforts of that association 
were doubtless well meant. I am discussing 
the charge brought forward against my con- 
stituency ; and I wish to say, now and here, 
that it is false and slanderous to charge that 
they have ever resisted the laws of the United 
States, or that they are disloyal or revolution- 
ary, either in any part of their history or in 
their present attitude. 

Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. I ask the gentle- 
man if history will prove that the people of 
Kansas have not resisted indictments ? 

Mr. PARROTT. I am going to tell you 
about that in a few moments, 

Mr. SMITH, of Virginia. I object to these 
interruptions, 

Mr, CLARK, of Missouri, And I wish to 
ask the gentleman, at the same time, whether 
he intended to apply the language, " false and 
slanderous," to me ? 

Mr, PARROTT, Not at all. I disclaim any 
disrespect to the gentleman from Missouri. I 
am answering the gentleman's argument. I 
am answering a printed argument addressed to 
this House ; and, if the judgment of this House 
be that I am trespassing upon its rules of order, 



8 



I will not pursue this line of remark further. 
[Cries of " Go on I " " Go on I "] 

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri 
[Mr, Clark] wants me to tell him whether the 
people of Kansas have not resisted indictments. 
God forbid that I should ever deny that the 
people of Kansas did resist the execution of 
the Territorial laws. That, sir, in my judfr- 
ment, constitutes one of the chiefest glories of 
that people in their memorable struggle for 
the preservation of their personal and political 
rights. 

Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. I hope the gentle- 
man will permit me to make a suggestion. Did 
the people of Kansas confine their resistance 
entirely to Territorial laws ? 

Mr, PARROT r. They did; but I aai now 
on the point of the Territorial laws. Mr. 
Speakei", I recognise nothing as law, except 
the will of the people legally expressed ; and 
the laws resisted by my constituency — or eva- 
ded, is the better term, though I do not shrink 
from anything in this respect ; I say they were 
spurious and null — the laws they evaded, sir, 
were not the will of the people legally express- 
ed. No, sir, they were the enactments of a 
Missouri mob, clotlied with the thin semblance 
of law. They were made in fraud. They were 
them«*lves fraud. They were intended to pro- 
mote and encourage fraud. By means of these 
pretended enactments, the most refined cruelty 
was practiced, through the connivance of the 
District Court — a creation of the usurpation — 
under whose process grand juries were packed 
and indictments fabricated against innocent 
men. The Government never had the hardi- 
hood to bring these cases before -a traverse 
jury. And, sir, they were only executed by the 
aid of Federal appointees, sent to that Territory 
from abroad. The largest bounties of Federal 
patronage stimulated these competing scoun- 
drels to outdo each other in works of infamous 
rascality. [Sensation and laughter.] They 
never found, and they never could find, citizens 
of Kansas Territory who would stand up in fa- 
vor of these pretended laws. . 

Sir, when you come to speak of devotion to 
law, I challenge any man to show me a con- 
stituency which has sacrificed more in behalf 
of the institutions and laws of the country than 
that which I am proud to represent and defend 
upon this floor. They have submitted even to 
the color of Federal authority, in my judg- 
ment, not always wisely ; but they have done 
so. They have had their peaceable political 
conventions broken up by United States sol- 
diery. They have had their homes desolated 
and laid waste, and their lives imperilled, by 
commissioned mobs, sailing through the coun- 
firy for the purpose of hunting out and hound 
ing down every man who resisted their cruel 
exactions. The whole land has been filled 
with the fury and passions of Pandemonium 
by the exercise of pretended Federal authority 



in that Territory, They have always submitted ^ 
to these exactions, however unjust. 

I know that it is indeed difficult for men t« 
maintain such a position ; and I am not at all 
surprised, Mr. Speaker, that partisan zeal 
should have heaped upon my constituency the 
charge of revolutionary conduct. It is indeed 
difficult to draw the line between legitimate 
and illegitimate opposition. They have chosen, 
sir, to submit, and to take the consequences, 
as a lesser evil than the odium of iusuirection. 
There may have been — there has been — an oc- 
casional exceptional adventurer, who, in the 
fury of passion, raised his arm against the au- 
thority of the United States ; but that has been 
a bubble upon the surface — a pimple on the 
skin — the great popular heart has been sweet 
and sound to the core in loyalty and devotion 
to the institutions of the country. So much for 
that. 

I come now, Mr. Speaker, to consider further 
the objections which are stated in the minority 
report. It is said that there are not enough 
people in the Territory ; and that, sir, is said 
by the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. Clark,] 
in the face of the fact, that, with little more 
than one-half the present population, he prof- 
fered a willing and long-continued support to 
the Lecompton Constitution. But these ob- 
jectors are of two classes : the first, v?ho deny 
that there is sufficient population in the Terri- 
tory ; and the second, who, if there be suffi- 
cient population, deny that that sufficiency has | 
been legally ascertained. I reply to the first \ 
class by saying it its not true in point of fact 
that there are not ninety three thousand people 
in the Territory of Kansas. I have four dis- 
tinct sources from which I derive my informa- „ 
tion upon that subject. The first is, the actual | 
vote polled at the general elections of 1859 ; I 
the second, registered voters of the Territory ; | 
the third, a census taken by the people ; and 1 
the fourtli, the taxable property assessed by the 
assessors of the Territory. They all agree in 
making the aggregate population of the Ter- 
ritory at least ninety-three thousand people. 

I will say here, in answer to the interraga- 
tory of the gentleman from New Jersey, [Mr. 
Adrain,] put to me a while ago, that the popu- 
lation of Kansas does not fall short of one hun- 
dred thousand, in my judgment. We have, 
first, over twenty thousand people registered of 
of six months' residence. We have, in the sec- 
ond place, two general elections — the election 
on the ratification of the Constitution, and the 
election for Delegates to Congress — at each of 
which, 1*7,000 votes were cast. I ask gentlemen 
upon all sides, who are familiar with these 
things, how many voters they suppose, in a 
scattered Territory like ours, from some ina- 
bility or another, were kept away from the 
polls? It is not too much to say, and hardly, 
I think, too much to ask from a candid oppo- 
nent, the concession that there must be at 
least, when seventeen thousand votes have 



been polled at three general elections, twenty 
thousand voters in that Territory, 

Mr. REAGAN. Let me put a question to 
the gentleman. I do so for the purpose of 
eliciting information. Is the number of popu- 
lation stated by the gentleman the number 
that is included within the boundaries of the 
proposed new State, as prescribed in the pend- 
ing bill ; or are the people outside of the west- 
ern boundary of the proposed new State in- 
cluded in his statement? Does he embrace 
the Pike's Peak settlers ? 

Mr. PARROTT. I am going to consider the 
census, about which something has already j 
been said ; and I may say, in reference to the 
interrogatory of the gentleman from Texas, | 
[Mr. Reagan,] that the population disclosed | 
by these elections, and by the census which has j 
been taken, is, none of it, included in the re- j 
gion cut off and now known as Pike's Peak. | 

Mr. REAGAN. Let me understand the gen- j 
tleman. Does he say that his aggregate em- | 
braces none of the people of what is known as | 
the Pike's Peak region, I 

Mr. PARROTT. I say that the people who | 
live in what is now known as Pike's Peak, and ! 
outside of the western boundary of the pro- i 
posed new State, are not included in any of j 
these estimates. ' 

Mr. BARKSDALE. Has the gentleman in 
his possession the returns taken under the cea- I 
sus? If he has,'I would like to have the exact 
figures, 

Mr. PARROTT. I am coming to that, I am 
reluctant, Mr, Speaker, to put my own testi- 
mony in ; but it will be remembered by gentle- 
men, and it has been reproduced here this '■ 
morning, that the Delegate from Oregon, when j 
similarly situated to myself, offered his testi- 
mony, and it was accepted, and I believe acted i 
upon at least by a respectable portion of the 
opposite side of the House. It is for this reiv [ 
son that I have, in this connection, stated my 
own conviction of the sufficiency of population. 
T. hold in my hand a report made by a commit- 
tee — the Committee on Elections of the late 
Territorial Legislature of Kansas. I call the 
attention of the gentleman from Mississippi 
[Mr. Barksdale] to it. It is a report on an 
imperfect and fragmentary census taken in 
June, 1859, by order of the Legislature, for 
purposes of taxation, having no reference to 
the requirements of the English bill. None o^ 
the coanties are fully reported, and many made 
no return at all. What I am now going to 
read, is a revision of this census by the last 
Legislature. 

Mr, BARKSDALE, I would inquire if that 
census was taken under an act authorized by 
the Legislature of Kansas, 

Mr. PARROTT. I so stated. Since that 
time, the immigration into Kansas has been un- 
precedented, I was saying, that the Commit- 
tee on ElejCtions in the Legislature of Kansas, 



to which was referred the subject of the census, 
reported as follows : 

" The Committee on Elections, to whom was 
referred the subject of the census, have had 
the subject under consideration, and ask leave 
to submit the following report: 

" Your committee have examined the re- 
turns as submitted with the Governor's mes- 
sage, and find from information obtained from 
the clerks of the several couTities returned, 
and members who represent those counties in 
both branches of the Legislature, that the re- 
turns are very imperfect; that in many coun- 
ties only partial returns have been received by 
the Executive, as required by law, 

'' Your committee find that Doniphan coun- 
ty has returned, from four townships, eleven 
hundred and eleven registered votes, and a 
population of thirt3'-five hundred and nine ; 
and, from reliable information before the com- 
mittee, the registers of that county now show 
a registered vote of over eighteen hundred, 
which would make an additional population 
of about three thousand. 

" Atchison returned nine hundred and sixty- 
three registered votes and a population of 
thirty seven hundred and twenty-three, and 
now has on the register about two thousand 
votes, which would make an additional popu- 
lation of forty-two hundred. 

" Riley county is not returned, in which there 
are now about six hundred and fifty votes, 
with a population of about twenty-six hun- 
dred, 

" Leavenworth county has returned a' vote of 
three thousand four hundred and forty-five, 
and a population of twelve thousand one hun- 
dred and twenty-two. The population at that 
time in the city of Leaveuv.'orth was nearly 
the amount returned from the whole county. 
From the most reliable information obtained 
■from persons well acquainted and represent- 
ing that county here, the county contains a 
population of sixteen thousand, making an 
additional population of about four thousand. 

" From information from the deputy clerk of 
Lykens county, between three and four hun- 
dred registered voters do not appear in the re- 
port, that were registered in that county, which 
would make an additional population of about 
sixteen hundred. 

" Morris, Pottawatomie, and "Washington 
counties, only partial returns, and in some of 
the counties where there are six hundred 
voters, with a population of twenty-five hun- 
dred, only fifty to two hundred Kegistered 
votes returned. 

" In the five counties above mentioned, there 
is returned a population of seventeen hundred 
and eighteen, and a vote of six hundred and 

sixty-four, in the aggregate being less than 

one-third of the actual vote or population in 

said counties, which, if added to the popula- 
tion now returned, would swell the population 

to the number of about seven thousand. 



10 



This calculation is based on the information 
of persons living in those counties, who have 
examined the census returns and register. 

The census returns, as exhibited in the report 
of the Governor, show great neglect on the 
part of the assessors in many of the town- 
ships, and in many of the most populous 
counties. Besides the five mentioned above, 
only three out of five, or five out of eight of 
the townships, have been returned to the Ex- 
ecutive, showing conclusively that a very 
large population exists in those counties, of 
which your committee have not been able to 
collect any information as to the real number. 

" Your committee also find no returns from 
the counties of Clay, Dickinson, McGee, 
Osage, Wilson, and l3orn, and the smallest 
estimate that can be made is one hundred 
and fifty votes to each county, making a total 
vote of nine hundred, with a population of at 
least thirty-four hundred. This calculation 
is not based on the rapid increase of popula- 
tion which has been continually pouring into 
these fertile counties for the last eight months. 

" The returns, as reported by t^e Governor, 
show a partial and incorrect census, as taken 
in the month of June, 1859, since which time 
the emigration into Kansas has been unpre- 
cedented. The whole amount of. population, 
as reported by the Governor at the regular 
session, was seventy-one thousand seven hun- 
dred and seventy ; to which, if we add the 
calculation as estimated in the foregoing 
counties partially returned, and from which 
we have no return, the population, up to the 
1st day of July, 1859, would amount to about 
ninety-seven thousand five hundred and 
seventy, in which is not included a* large 
number of the most populous counties, from 
which there have been only a part of the 
townships returned to the Executive. Your 
committee are of the opinion that it will be 
very difficult to obtain any correct census of 
many of those counties upon the frontier of 
the Territory, where the officers do not either 
qualify at all, and enter upon the discharge 
of their duties, or manifest such gross indif- 
ference and stupidity as not to make a return 
in any way to comply with the law, either in 
taking or returning the census. Many of the 
counties have not been organized, and there- 
fore have no officers, notwithstanding they 
have a large population, of which your com- 
mittee have not been able to collect any cor- 
rect data. 

" Your committee are of the opinion that the 
rapid increase of wealth and population in 
this Territory, and the manifest desire of all 
classes of our prosperous and energetic citi- 
zens, demand that some legislation be had, 
relative to the taking of the future census, 
and other valuable statistics of this Territory. 

" Your committee have, with some care and 
labor, prepared a bill and tabular form, which 
they believe will meet the demands of the 



' case at this time, and ask leave to submit the 
* same with this report, and recommend its 
' passage. " P. P. Elder, Chairman. 

" F. M. Chuistison. 

" J. C. L.VMKDIN." 

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE. What committee 
reported that? 

Mr. PARROTT. The Committee on Elec- 
tions of the Legislature of Kanaas, and it is 
signed by Messrs. Elder, Lambdin, and Christi- 
son ; the last named is a Democrat. 

For the purpose of testing the accuracy of 
that calculation, allow me to call the attention 
of those who are listening to this part of my 
argument, to a comparison of what the com- 
mittee reported, and some returns which I my- 
self have taken the pains to procure. For ex- 
ample, they say : 

" Your committee find that Doniphan county 
' has returned from four townships eleven hun- 
' dred and eleven registered votes, and a popu- 
' lation of thirty-five hundred and nine ; and, 
' from reliable information before the commit- 
' tee, the registers of that county now show a 
' registered vote of over eighteen hundred, which 
' would make an additional population of about 
' three thousand." 

I hold in my hand the returns from the county 
clerk of Doniphan county, sworn to and certi- 
fied by a notary public, in which the aggregate 
population of that county, as returned to him 
officially, is put at seven thousand nine hundred 
and sixty-three, making, as you will see by com- 
paring it with the statements of the committee, 
a large excess in favor of the official and reli- 
able statement procured from the clerk, under 
oath. 

The same thing is true in regard to Atchison 
county. There are at least one thousand more 
people in that county than are reported by this 
Committee on Elections. There are three thou- 
sand more people in my own county — the 
county of Leavenworth — than are allowed in 
that report. Taking these statements all to- 
gether, and this census, as it is completed in 
this report — which is a quasi-offi.c\&\ census, be- 
cause the supplementary returns are completed 
by the Legislature, or under their sanction — we 
find a population of over ninety-seven thousand 
people. I do not doubt, in reality, that it is one 
hundred thousand. 

Mr. BARKSDALE. The gentleman says this 
census was ordered by the people. I desire to 
know if the gentleman means that the Terri- 
torial Legislature ordered It? 

Mr. PARROTT. That is what I mean. So 
much, then, for the census ; so much for the 
registered vote, and so much for the votes act- 
ually polled in three general elections in the 
Territory. Now, when Oregon was before the 
House for admission, Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, 
then the leader of that side of the House, and 
particularly upon that question, placed great 
emphasis upon the fact that the taxable prop- 
erty of Oregon furnished sufficient data upon 



11 



which to compute the population of that Terri- 
tory. And I say now that the $15,000,000' 
property listed by the assessors, and reported 
to the Legislature by the auditor of the Terri- 
tory, would give that Territory over one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand population, if compu- 
ted upon the basis of the State of Ohio, for 
example. 

I do not claim infallibility for any such test, 
because I remember that Mr. Stephens got 
about two hundred and fifty thousand people in 
Oregon by that calculation, while nobody be- 
lieves that fifty thousand were there. But as 
that has been made one of the bases of calcu- 
lation in ascertaining the population of a Terri- 
tory, it is no more than just and fair that it 
should be submitted to the House upon this 
occasion. Now, one word to the other class of 
objectors, to wit : those who stick for a legal 
census by the Federal authorities. Why did 
you not take the census according to the law? 
Not only have you failed to do so ; but more, 
you expressly declined to do so, by defeating 
an appropriation last year in the Senate which 
you had the power to carry. It seems to me 
you stultify yourselves ; " no one can take ad- 
vantage of his own wrong." This is a waiver 
of the point. Otherwise you might make our 
exclusion perpetual, or at least dependent on 
your will, by refusing to take a census from 
time to time. We show the population ; to 
count them was your business, not ours. More- 
over, I desire to observe in this place, as con- 
clusive of the "animus" of the Administration 
or Lecompton party, that the United States 
marshal of Kansas applied last summer to the 
Secretary of the Interior for permission to take 
the census, proposing to wait for his pay till 
Congress should make an appropriation for that 
purpose. The offer was declined ; much, I 
think, to the advantage of the marshal. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, allow me to say a word 
in regard to another ground of objection, and 
that is in respect to the Indians, which so 
trouble the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. 
Clark.] It seems to me to be a sufficient and 
complete answer to all that has been said in 
respect to these Indian reservations, that if the 
lights of the Indians do rest upon a treaty 
stipulation, then the State Constitution, as to 
that treaty, is inoperative and void. A treaty 
stipulation is well known to be a higher law 
than a State Constitution, and hence, pro tanio, 
to the extent that they conflict, the treaty stipu 
lation will bear down the State Constitution, 
and this reserve will stand. It appears to be 
the object of the gentleman from Missouri and 
his party, having failed to crush out the white 
man in Kansas by thrusting the black bond- 
man upon him, now to strike another blow by 
putting the red man in the path of his future 
progress. This new-born sympathy comes from 
a suspicious quarter, and at a suspicious time, 
and I must be allowed to say that I believe it 
to be manufactured for the occasion. What 



are the facts ? The facts are, that the Chero- 
kee nation always repudiated the possession 
of this strip of neutral land. I spoke the 
other day with the chief of that semi civil- 
ized nation, and he said that the treaty of 
1835 was known among his people as ^'iJie 
squaio treaty;''^ that it was brought about by 
the imbecility or intoxication of the head men 
of the nation ; that this strip of land was im- 
posed upon them in lieu of $500,000, which the 
Government had stipulated and agreed to pay. 
Now they are here, and for what purpose ? To 
complain that we have extended our bound- 
aries over the neutral land, and to complain of 
a violation of treaty stipulation ? Not at all. 
They are here to complain that the Govern- 
ment will insist upon their having that piece of 
land, which they did not want and never did. 
own. They are soliciting the President to open 
negotiations, looking to a retrocession of this 
tract. I have no doubt that this will, ere long, 
be brought about. 

Mr. HINDMAN. As the gentleman has re- 
ferred to the attitude held by the Cherokee 
delegation here, I can speak, from personal 
knowledge, as to the position they occupy in 
regard to that neutral land. They do protest 
against including that territory within the limits 
of any organized State or Territory. 

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. Allow me 
one question. Did the Indians take possession, 
and are they now inhabiting this land? 

Mr. PARROTT. I was going to observe fur- 
ther, Mr. Speaker, in respect to the facts of this 
case, that, instead of the Indians having assert- 
ed any ownership or inhabitancy in that tract 
known as the " neutral land," there are to-day 
at least seven hundred white families living on 
that reservation. 

Mr. HIND MAN. Will the gentleman allow 
me to state, further, that these parties are there 
in violation of the rights of the Cherokee na- 
tion ; and that they have been notified by the 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs that they must 
remove from the land which they are occupying 
unlawfully ? 

Mr. PARROTT. That is another question. 
The gentleman from Arkansas has not heard 
of their going off; and he will not, in my 
opinion. 

Mr. MAYNARD. I ask whether this bound- 
ary does not include other indian lands besides 
these neutral lands ? 

Mr. PARROTT. No, sir. 

Mr. MAYNARD. I am informed very differ- 
ently. 

Mr. PARROTT. It does not. And, more- 
over, the setting off this tract of land to the 
Cherokees was itself a violation of this treaty, 
(I hope the gentleman from Missouri will pay 
attention to what I am saying,) which pro- 
vided that the territory to be given to the 
Cherokees should be a compact territory ; where- 
as there is another piece of territory extending 
between the Cherokee neutral lands and the 



12 



great body of their possession — T mean the 
Qna-pau reservation. 

Mr. PHELPS. The tract of eight hnndred 
thousand acres of land, to which the gentleman 
from Kansas refers, is known on the border as 
the neutral land. It was set apart, and specifi- 
cally designated as a tract of land containing 
eight hundred thousand acres. It is, to a cer 
tain extent, detached ; and yet it is connected 
on the west with the Cherokee lands. 

Mr. PARROTT. Well, I do not care to be 
further interrupted on this point, I will give 
the law and the facts bearing on the point at 
issue. 

Mr. PHELPS. That country is embraced 
within the treaty of 1835 ; and there is an ex- 
press stipulation that, of the lands thus assigned 
to the Cherokee nation, none shall be embraced 
within the limits of any State, or any organized 
Territory. 

Mr. PARROTT. Well, you did not think of 
that, I suppose, when you voted for Lecomp- 
ton. If any gentleman wants to answer the 
observation which I make on this subject, and 
which I think complete, I will yield the floor 
to him to do so : that is, that if there is a treaty 
stipulation which preserves this land from being 
surrounded by State or Territorial lands, the 
State Constitution is, to that extent, inoperative 
upon it ; and with that suggestion, which I 
think exhaustive, I leave the matter. 

Mr. HINDMAN. Is not the gentleman ^om 
Kansas aware of the fact, that many years ago 
the Cherokee country in Georgia was included 
within the limits of that State ; and that a 
question arose between the State authorities 
and the Cherokees, and that, in the end, the 
Cherokees were compelled to emigrate v,-est of 
the Mississippi I'iver ? Just precisely such 
another controversy will arise in Kansas, if she 
be admitted under the Wyandotte Constitution. 

Mr. PARROTT. Who expects, Mr. Speaker, 
to stop the progress of white people, or to stop 
the admission of any State, by the obstacle of 
an Indian reservation? Our "manifest des- 
tiny " is to cover the continent now lying waste 
with free States. The black race and the red 
race are fated to fade and be scattered before 
the advancing whites, "like leaves before the 
autumn blast." I leave this part of the subject, 
again repeating, however, that this objection 
does not lie in the mouths of those who sup- 
ported the Lecompton Constitution with a sim- 
ilar provision. 

I have answered, Mr. Speaker, as I think 
fairly and candidly, the objections raised by 
my friend from Missouri. I have shown, I be- 
lieve, that there is a sufiScient population in the 
Territory. I have shown that the people have 
adopted a Constitution which no one here will 
question is the embodiment of their will. It 
is a fact on which I congratulate myself and 
the country, that, after all the turbulent and 
revolutionary proceedings that have taken place 
in this House and elsewhere in regard to Con- 



stitutions, we come here at last with a Consti- 
tion on which there is no imputation of fraud, 
and no question that it is the choice of the 
people. They have, on three, four, or five dis- 
tinct occasions — each time, as it seems to me, 
rising to a higher pitch of enthusiasm and ex- 
citement, declared in favor of the Wyandotte 
Constitution as their organic law. Now, I ask, 
is it fair, is it just and manly, on the part of 
our Democratic adversaries, to continue to an- 
noy and vex those against whom they have ex- 
pended all the artillery of legitimate warfare, 
by attempting to prolong the controversy, by 
pleading in our ears these hollow-sounding, 
tinkling technicalities? Would it not be more 
decorous for them to submit to the inevitable 
chances of the war which they themselves in- 
voked ? It will not be pretended that on the 
fields of Kansas they have not had a fair op- 
portunity to try the virtues of Southern courage 
and Southern eniigration. If we of the North 
have surpassed them in our mobility, and main- 
tained the field against their arms, let them 
yield to the consequences. But I do insist on 
it, that it does not seem to me lo be manly " to 
stick in the bark," and plead technicalities 
against those who have, in honorable warfare, 
overcome them. I would suggest to these gen- 
tlemen, that to defeat may be sometimes added 
dishonor, and to weakness contempt. 

There is another consideration connected 
with the admission of this State, which I ought, 
in all justice, to submit to the House; and that 
arises out of the inability of the Territorial 
Government to afford protection to the prop- 
erty and persons and the political privileges 
of the people. These Territorial Governments, 
Mr. Speaker, are, in their best estate, only 
tolerable, because they are supposed to be 
unavoidable. I do not mean now to enter that 
field of dialectics and speculation, whither so 
many have been lured by cross-purposes, in 
quest of facts to sustain preconceived opinions. 
Among the throng of amateurs and experts 
who hasten to theorize; and declaim on mooted 
points of Territorial government, it may not be 
unwise to listen for a moment to one who 
speaks not of theories, but actualities ; not of 
fancies, but of facts ; " all of which he saw, aiid 
part of which he was." 

Now I say, in respect to this Government, 
following the popular nomenclature of the day, 
that it is neither "Congressional sovereignty" 
nor "popular sovereignty." It is a kind of 
hybrid, and I should style it a Presidential or 
Executive sovereignti/. In other words, I assert 
that the Executive influence of the country has 
pervaded and colored the politics of the Terri- 
tory under this organic act. I know that much 
is to be attributed to the grossest vices of mal- 
administration in the Territory ; but, after all, 
taking the plain, legal provisions of the law, 
which gives the whole judiciary, the whole ex- 
ecutive, and two-thirds of the legislative power 
into the hands of Federal appointees, who go 



13 



out like praetors in the provinces to rob and ] 
squeeze the people whoia they are sent to 
foster and protect — men who are responsible, 
not to the people, but to their masters at 
AVashington — I say that, giving this power 
into their hands, you will not find that the 
popular element can resist its aggressions. It 
is idle to tell those whose necks are galled and . 
raw,- chafing with the yoke of despotism, that 
they are living in the enjoyment of popular 
sovereignty. It is idle to tell those who have 
been robbed of two Legislatures, who have lost 
three years representation on this floor, who 
have been wasted by unprovoked wars, who 
have been stripped of millions worth of private 
property, that they are in the exercise of any 
great and "desirable species of sovereignty. 
Wherever the purpose of the Government of 
the United States and the popular will of Kan- 
sas have come in collision, the people have 
uniformly been borne down. Have they not a 
thousand times, and in a thouaand wajs, de- 
clared that they were unfriendly to the institu- 
tion of slavery ? And has not the Government 
reasserted and persisted in declaring that sla- 
very exists there? And does it not keep it 
there now, to-day, an empty husk? 

If, then, the majority have been controlled 
by the minority ; or, in other words, if the peo- 
ple have been borne down by the Government 
party; if the policy of the Territory has run 
counter to public opinion — that is to say, has 
been imposed by foreign aid — is it not a palpa- 
ble and ridiculous misnomer, a plain perversion 
of terms, to call such a scheme a p )pular 
Government? To characterize the Territorial 
Government of which I am speaking, in plain 
t«rms, by the lights of experience, I should call 
it a system of Federal police, expanding or 
contracting its powers to suit the emergency ol 
the time, and enforcing its arbitrary regula- 
tions by just 60 much and such kind of coercion 
as the occasion may demand. It has been 
weighed in tlie balance, and found wanting in 
everything which tends to preserve the peace 
and order of society. 

I will say, therefore, of this middie species o! 
sovereignty, so-called pojmlar, that because it 
is infected with the virus of Executive influence 
and dictation, because it is the imposing shib 
boleth of party demagogues, and not the choice 
of the v/ell-wishers of the people, it ouglit to be 
condemned and forever discarded. Let us have 
one thing or the other. Let us have the gov- 
ernment of Congress, or a government of the 
people — and by that, I mean the people elect- 
ing ail their officers in the Territory ; and let 
those officers be the servants and not the mas- 
ters of the people, and respond directly for their 
conduct to the people. We liave tried the 
present plan, and we give our testimony against 
it. Our experience reminds me, Mr. "Speaker, 
of nothing so much as of the barren honor 
which Sancho Panza enjoyed in the govern- 
ment of his island, which he was glad, with an 



empty stomach, to abdicate and return to the 
grateful obscurity from which he had emerged. 
We would as gladly give up the empty pageant 
of power for a substantial and just Government, 
either exerted by Congress or given to the peo- 
ple themselves. For myself, I am satisfied and 
convinced that the people of the Territory are 
the just depositary of political power ; that they 
ought to exercise it; and thai a Government 
thus established and power thus exercised will 
comport with every beneficial end for which 
Governments are instituted. We have now 
demonstrated the superior mobility of the North- 
ern people, and their superior energy ; and, I 
expect, in avowing my fidelity to this policy, 
that nothing but free States will be made all 
over the unsettled area of the West. 

There is another consideration, Mr. Speaker, 
to which I desire to allude very briefly. There 
are new Territories arising and pressing upoa 
the borders of Kansas, and it is time that Kan- 
sas should be taken out of the way of these new 
Territories. Four or five Delegates are now 
waiting at your door to obtain recognition ; and 
it is not too much to say«^^at the next half 
century wjU show a numerical majority of 
States west of the Mississippi river, a large part 
of which now lie within the unsettled area 
stretching from the falls of the Missouri to the 
mouth of the Gila — a region we now know of 
unsurpassed richness in every element of physi- 
cal strength. There is the Pike's Peak coun- 
try — the young Ophir of the West — Jefferson, 
already grown too large for the swaddling-bands 
and leading-strings of Territorial government. 
It needs nothing to hasten its incubation. It 
will be here thundering at your door as a State 
next year, and Kansas must be removed to 
make way for this and other coming States. 

There is another consideration, Mr. Speaker, 
which I must not omit to mention. The com- 
merce of the plains is now beginning, deserved- 
ly, to attract the attention of cotnmereial men 
in every part of the world. That commerce, 
although yet in its infancy, rivals the commerce 
of the sea and the commerce of our Western 
rivers. It needs protection against the bands 
of nomadic savages which sweep over and in- 
fest those Western plains, securing a scanty 
and precarious subsistence by plunder and the 
chase. How will you protect it? You must 
do it by building up an interoceanic railway ; 
and you must do it, further, by pushing forward 
the breast-work of States, by fortifying the 
country with stable Governments, and opening 
its wastes to the careful and productive hands 
of industry. The commerce whiuh will soon 
i be passing over that eountry will more than 
justify the legislation which I ask. You have 
your gold, and silver, and qui(7ksilver, from 
Pike's Peak ; your wool and hides from New 
Mexico ; your precious ores from Nevada. You 
will soon have spices, and silks, and teas, from 
the East, pouring along that great railway ; 
and to prepare the way, to lay the foundation, 



14 



to do yonr part towards the realization of this 
vast enterprise, I ask you to begin, as an im- 
portant step, in my judgment, with the admis- 
sion of Kansas into the Union. 

Mr. Speaker, I have submitted in this desul- 
tory way the considerations which occurred to 
my mind in regard to this controversy, and I 
have replied as well as I may to the arguments 
which have been adduced against the admission 
of Kansas. I do not propose to indulge in any 
discussion of the merely political aspect of this 
question. I may do so at another time. But 
I will say this : if gentlemen cannot answer 
these facts and arguments, may I not reason- 
ably anticipate that they will not deny and re- 
fuse the conclusions to which they lead ? 

I indulge, then, the pleasing anticipation 
that the State will be admitted, and the contro- 
versy so far closed. Though the Lecompton 
Constitution is dead, its offspring, the English 
bill, still languishes on the statute book — a 
monument of the folly, the incapacity, and the 
pernicious politics, of the present Administra- 



tion. Sponge out this obsolete ^and inoperative 
enactment. May I not venture to remind yon 
that those who now plead for justice at your 
hands are brothers of yonr blood — revering 
the same Constitution, obeying the same laws, 
speaking the same language, cherishing the 
same traditions of the past, elevated and in- 
spired by the same hopes of future greatness 
for our country ? They have trod the " wine- 
press" of persecution with unflagging firmness, 
and come forth with a spirit worn, it may be, 
but unbroken; jubilant, and even defiant; 
ready to do battle in behalf of truth, justice, 
humanity, and all things else which contribute 
to dignify and ennoble a people in the judg- 
ment of an enlightened world. With the con- 
summation of this measure we shall, I trust, 
see an era of better feeling initiated. The dis- 
tempers generated by this long and fierce con- 
troversy will be lilfe volcanoes burnt out — on 
the ashes, lava, and squalid scoria) of which 
shall spring " the peaceful olive and the cheer- 
ing vine." 



PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860 



REPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. 



HON. PRESTON KING, N. Y., Chairman. 
" J. \V. GRIMES, IOWA. 
" . L, F. S. FOSTER, CONN. 

On the part of the Senate. 

" E. B. WASHBURNE, ILLINOIS. 



HON. JOHN COVODE, PENN., Treasurer. ■ 
" E. G. SPAULDING, N. Y. 
" J. B. ALLEY, M.ASS. 
" DAVID KILGORE, INDIANA. 
" y. L. N. STRATTON, N. J. 

On the part of the Ilotise of Reps. 



The Committee a^e prepared to furnirili 
EIGHT PAGES. 
Hon. W. H. Seward : State of the Countrj. 

" W. H. Seward: "Irrepressible Conflict'' 

Speech. ' 
" G. A. Grow, Pean. : Free Homes for Free 

Men. 
" Jataes Harlan, Iowa: Shall the Territories 

be Africanized? 
•' John Hickman, Penn.: Who have Violated 

Compromises. 
" B. F. Wade, Ohio: Invasion of Harper's 

Ferry. 
" G. W. Scranton and J. H. Capapbell, Penn.: 

The Speakership. 
" F. P. Blair, Mo., Address at Cincinnati : 

Colonization and Commerce. 
" Orris S. Ferry, Conn. 
" Abraham Lincoln, 111. : The Demands of 

the South — The Republican Party Vin- 
dicated. 
" William Windom, Minn.: The Homestead 

Bill — Its Friends and its Foes. 
" Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois: The Barbarism 

of Slavery. 
" Henry L. Dawes, Mass.: The New Dogma 

of the Sou^h — " Shwery a Blessini^." 
" R. H. Duell, N. Y. : The Position of Parties. 
" M. S. Wilkinson, Minn.: The Homestead 

Bill. 
" D. W. Gooch, Mass.: Polygamy in Utah. 
Carl Schurz, Wis.: Douglas and Popular Sover- 
eignty. 
Lands for the Landless — A Tract. 
The Poor Whites of the South — The Injury done 

them by Slavery — A Ti-act. 

SIXTEEN PAGES. 

Hon. Lyman Trumbull, 111.: Seizure of the Ar- 
senals lit Harper's Ferry, Va. and Liberty, 
Mo., and in Vindication of the Republi- 
can Party. 

« B. F. Wade, Ohio: Property in the Terri- 
•tories. 

« C. H. Van Wyck, N. Y. : True Democracy- 
History Vindicated. 



the following Speeches and Documents : 
Hon. H. Wilson, Mass.: Territorial Slave Code. 
" John P. Hale, N. H. 

" J. J. Perry, Me. : " Posting the Books be- 
tween the North aud the South." 
" J. R. Doolittle, Wis.: The Calhoun Revo- 
lution — Its Basis and its Progress. 
" C. B.Sedgwick, N. Y. : The Republican 
Party the Result of Southern Aggression 
" M. J. Parrott, Kansas: Admission of Kansas. 
Federalism Unmasked : Or the Rights of the 
States, the Congress, the E.xecutive, and 
the People, Vindicated against the En- 
croachments of the Judiciary, prompted- 
by the Modern Apostate Democracy. 
Being a Compilation from the* Writings 
and Speeches of the Leaders of the Old 
Jeffersoniiin Republican Party.. By Dan- 
iel R. Goodloe. 

TWENTY-FOUR PAGES. 
Hon. Jacob CoUamer, Vermont. 

THIRTY-TWO PAGES. 
Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. 

GERMAN. 
EIGHT PAGES. 
Hon. G. A. Grow, Penn.: Free Homes for Free 
Men. 
" James Harlan, Iowa: Shall the Territories 

be Africanized? 
" John Hickman, Penn.: Who Have Violated 

Compromises. 
" William Windom, Minn. : The Homestead 

Bill — Its Friends and it.s Foes. 
" H. Winter Davis, Md.: Election of Speaker. 
Carl Schurz, Wis.: Douglas and Populan Sover- 
eignty. ' 

SIXTEEN P.VGES. 
Hon. Lyman Trumbull, 111.: Seizure of the Arse- 
nals at Harper's Ferry, Va., and Liberty, 
Mo., and in Vindication of the Republi- 
can Party. 
" W. H. Seward, N. Y. : The State of the 
Country. 
Lands for the Landless — A Tract. 



And all the leading Republican Speeches as delivered. 

and Documents will be supplied at the following 
pages $1, and larger documents in proportion. 



During- the Presidential Campaign, Speeches 
reduced prices : per 100 — 8 paces 50 cents, IG 
Address either of the above Committee. 



GEORGE HARRINGTON, Secretary. 



